2/19/11

Did anyone get the license plate of that car?

The worst speed trap towns according to a link on Yahoo listed three towns in the top ten in Texas. No surprise there since Texas has three of the most populous cities in the the nation. (Houston, Dallas, San Antonio) What was a surprise was the fact that, yes, Dallas and Houston are in there, but San Antonio is edged out apparently, by..... Austin.

Yes, Austin, the most liberal city in Texas is one of the most greedy when it comes to nailing traffic offenders. (And make no mistake, that's what speed traps are all about. No city that uses speed traps really gives a flying fornication about your or their citizens' safety. All they care about is increasing their coffers.) But it is a surprise that a town with no real teeth in their homeless laws, allows marijuana use with a wagging finger, but not much else, and various other free-wheeing society actions would be ranked #3 on the list. (Houston edged out all the rest by double even what the nearest contenders had.)

As a rule, I don't speed, because as recently as 5 years ago I was limited to a bicycle because of a speeding ticket that I got in 1989. As a result of it, I ended up selling my car and had no good paying job for 15 years so was limited to bicycle to get around. I personally think people ought to slow down anyway. But speed traps are the bane of society. The article I read even mentions that some people have received tickets for doing a mere two or three miles over the limit. Now that's just ridiculous. Who among us hasn't had a slightly heavy foot at times? That's why most police departments usually allow a 5 MPH buffer. True, some scofflaws push that by riding at that 5 or 10 MPH over limit that those PDs allow, and thus make it trouble for the rest of us. But given the economic state of the nation as a whole, I think having speed traps to pickpocket unsuspecting motorists is a bit much.